I saw this tweet last week before we went to the hot springs and while I’m sure it was the hot springs that cured my malaise, the way this made me wheeze also really helped.
A video game dev posted this on a Reddit forum. It’s his idea of how a “feminine” character moves. I couldn’t stop watching it.
laughing my ass off at these feminine animations posted to the unreal engine subreddit pic.twitter.com/fUweQiHyvv
I mean, how? why? the HANDS?! I lost it. Tell me you’ve never seen an adult human woman move without telling me you’ve never seen an adult human woman move.
We could sail on a leaf boat with our tiny friends (illustration by Kawakami Shiro [1889-1983] for Kodomo no kuni, via the delightful Anthropomorphic Japan):
We could shine under the moon (Sung Hwa Kim, “I woke up. The moon is full, so I send my wishes to the universe” 2021, acrylic on canvas, via the equally delightful Le Jardin RoBo):
This is the face you make when you wear JEANS that you MADE to the ARCADE:
I don’t have a new hobby (yet) but my friend is really into pinball, so I joined her for a Saturday morning and also wore these JEANS. Did I mention I MADE them? And they FIT?
These are the Daughter Judy Worship Jeans and I made ZERO pattern adjustments. I did go down a size–it calls for a 12-ounce rigid denim and I was using a 7-ounce (barely) stretch denim. I had one bad moment when I sewed them up for real and thought maybe I shouldn’t have interfaced the waistband, but they’ve relaxed.
Many people on the internet were complaining about the fly front instructions but I thought they were perfect–clear and logical and made for a really clean professional finish. I did make a rookie mistake and use a pant zipper vs a jean zipper; turns out jean zippers have a more robust locking mechanism, so it remains to be seen if the zipper is going to stay up long term. But that’s why I was treating these as a wearable muslin and used the cheap denim. And it’s nothing my Rainbow Brite sweatshirt can’t hide.
If you couldn’t tell by the caps lock, I’m delighted by the fact I finally made jeans that fit. I’ve definitely made more complicated projects but for some reason these really feel like magic. I’m going to try the straight leg version next!
Does “taking the waters” like a Victorian invalid cure malaise? It absolutely does. Doc had taken our anniversary off work to make sure he wasn’t scheduled for the night shift in case I wanted to go to dinner, so I took the day off too and we checked out a hot spring 30 minutes away.
I’d seen this interactive map of thermal springs in the US earlier in the week and zoomed and clicked around Utah and was kind of shocked how many were along the Wasatch Front that I hadn’t heard of. Many of them don’t get any search results but one did: Saratoga Hot Spring, on the northwest side of Utah Lake.
It’s literally a pond at the end of a walking path, so expect silty water and a dirt bottom, but it was great–there’s development all around and then boom, a hot springs and a lake to the south. We saw a pair of cranes flying and grebes along the shore! The bottom of the spring has one really hot and soft spot that might suck you into the center of the earth!
Because it’s accessible and in a metro area, it’s popular: We were there at 1:30 on a Thursday and there were six other adults and five kids, and two more groups showed up in our hour there. But it’s free and it’s clean–people are obviously fond of it, a couple groups were rubbing the mud on their face and arms–and, again, it’s 30 minutes from the front door.
I’ll have to remember this cure for spring malaise! Google reviews mention it’s great in the winter, too.
Ten years ago today, I met a guy at a friend’s birthday dinner who made a joke about the fish of the day. 3,652 days later, I am grateful every day for his example, his brain, his heart, his absolute generosity. Happy anniversary, honey. I love you more than bread.
A Decade
by Amy Lowell
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
Of course I ordered stone beads and threads and findings after I talked about making a necklace–the best part of a hobby is buying things for it. I jumped right in to the tutorial and it turns out…getting the knots in the right place is a lot harder than it looks:
And as much as I tried to remember that you don’t have to be good at your hobbies, I was getting frustrated, so I cut it all apart and started practicing with the spare beads and thread:
Practicing helps! But at this point I was unhappy with the bead quality and the colors (that Etsy seller the tutorial recommended really doesn’t deliver colors that match what they show on screen) and my lack of IMMEDIATE EXPERTISE and was full of seasonal malaise to boot, so I put it away.
Will I finish this hobby? I don’t know; I don’t wear jewelry in my day-to-day, nor do I leave the house much (perhaps this is contributing to my malaise???). Maybe I’ll try again when I can remember these wise words better:
Today is the Vernal Equinox. It caught be by surprise this year but that fast-changing light might account for how unsettled I’ve been feeling in the last week. But the forsythia and the hyacinths are out and I even saw an apricot tree in bloom yesterday–I think it’s really happening.
(Textile Pattern for Kimono, Shin Bijutsukai ca 1900-1902, Japanese design Magazine)
(Charles Sheeler, Spring Interior 1927, oil on canvas)
I couldn’t get into any of my three thousand hobbies over the weekend, nor were the meals I planned and made as delicious as I thought they’d be, nor was the concert we went to Sunday afternoon as good as I wanted it to be. Even Toby was feeling the meh:
I guess we’re just waiting for the sun? Good thing spring starts this week.
1. This week I learned about the saola, “by far the largest terrestrial animal in the world (of certain existence) that has never been seen in the wild by a biologist.” It’s a bovine that lives in the mountains of Vietnam! It’s only been known about since 1992! And it’s critically endangered. 🙁
2. I also learned about “The Great Green Wall” being built across Africa to stop the expansion of the Sahara. I can only think of terraforming Arrakis.